NaNoNews: 24-hour funk

With a current total word count of 13,061, I'm 561 words ahead on my NaNoWriMo schedule. I had to get up pretty early on this unscheduled writing morning and hit it hard to catch up. Yesterday was not a good NaNoWriMo day for me. I managed only 237 words yesterday, and in spite of appointments and deadlines I had plenty of time in front of the computer when I should have been more productive. But I just wasn't.

You've heard of the 24-hour flu? Well, I had a 24-hour funk.

I'm thankful that it passed and this morning was far more productive. Productive, but emotional; I was crying while I typed. Yes, I was so invovled in my characters' lives that I was shedding real tears.

What I've discovered this week:
~My main character's name is Jillian.
~She lost control of her van on a rainslick road at night and suffered serious injuries, including a head injury (I do not yet know where she was going or where she was coming from).
~She was an English major who married a history major, named Jeff Norris, while they were still in college. They both intended to teach at the secondary level, but he felt called to ministry and switched to a pre-sem course of study. She taught at the middle school level while he attended seminary.
~Her immediate family includes five children, some of their spouses, and some grandchildren. (I had no idea she had such a large family!)
~Her oldest daughter's name is Jacquelyn, who is pregnant. (No idea where that come from either.)
~ She has a nice Christian doctor. (That was also a surprise.)

I know from my past four years of NaNoWriMo experience that I must stay on track with my scheduled word count goals or the monthly goal becomes impossible.

This is where my college experience as a self-taught learner comes in handy. I scheduled my assignments and stuck to that very strict schedule while taking Guided Independent Study courses in the Bachelor of Liberal Studies program, offered by the University of Iowa. In fact, you sometimes can find a promotional blurb featuring my glowing testimonial and my smiling face on the BLS website (here). It's kind of them to continue using my endorsement four years after my graduation (with honors, I might add). In any case, knowing how to set schedules and stick to them was a big factor in finally obtaining my college career goal and has been a huge asset in helping me accomplish as much as I have in my writing career.

Now that I've spent some time this morning getting caught up on my NaNoWriMo goal, I can let Living Echoes ideas gel over the rest of the weekend as I clean, get groceries, do laundry, and deal with a layer of rotting pears spread out to ripen on newspapers in our attic.

I wonder if Jillian will ever need to can pears?